A Geek On Everest 125
mysterious_mark writes "Recently I was recruited by Altitude Films to be the IT geek for a filming expedition to the north side of Mount Everest. I have written an account of my experience. It is a tale of high latency, low bandwidth, blown hard drives, and frozen fingers. Summit day is June 14th. See the expedition's site for the overall picture (caution: total Flash site)."
New RFC (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New RFC (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:New RFC (Score:5, Funny)
Re:New RFC (Score:4, Funny)
New option for current poll... (Score:3, Funny)
Man ... (Score:5, Funny)
You will all envy me. Or mod me as troll. I'M THE MOUNTAIN TROLL.
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Re:Man ... (Score:4, Interesting)
I know I posted on Slashdot from Everest back in 1999, I suspect it was frist. It probably had nothing to do with Everest -- it's a place with lots of hurry up and wait (and I do know they rejected my story on our mission, bastards!).
What an Elite Article! (Score:5, Funny)
From the article:
Apparently all he's missing a cape with a big fat S on his chest.
What a poser (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What a poser (Score:4, Funny)
To his credit, he did manage to slip in the car analogy..
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How's that site look on the mountain... (Score:4, Funny)
helicopter ride (Score:2)
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2005 - Helicopter landing
On 14 May 2005, pilot Didier Delsalle of France landed a Eurocopter AS 350 B3 Helicopter on the summit of Mount Everest[19] and remained there for two minutes. (His rotors were continually engaged; this is known as a "hover landing".) His subsequent take-off set the world record for highest take-off of a rotorcraft -- a record that of course cannot be beaten.[20] Delsalle had also performed a take-off two days earlier from the
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Btw, I don't like claims likes that. Who's to say that I couldn't fly up to the summit in my helicopter with a bunch of materials, build an elevated landing pad, then take off from that thus setting a new altitude record! Who's with me?! Any billionaires out there with cash burning a hole in their pocket, please contact me as I proclaim exclusive, patented, trademarked, and copyrighted rights to this idea!
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I thought K5 was higher than Everest.
Hmm..someone want to loan me a helicopter
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Was a controversy here for a while before Everest was named the highest.
http://www.factmonster.com/spot/everest3.html [factmonster.com]
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NASA is even looking at helecopters for Mars because the thin atmosphere makes fixed wing aircraft difficult to design. Flying fixed wing on Mars is easy, but the problem is that the speed of sound is very slow in the thin air. And, because the air is thin, you've got to fly fast to generate lift. This means
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest [wikipedia.org]
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I don't want to be an ass ... (Score:5, Informative)
I can't say I've ever done anything like this, though I've read a lot of books about it. For public consumption, I heavily recommend "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer [wikipedia.org]. Read it before the movie comes out--movies are always so much worse than books.
Re:I don't want to be an ass ... (Score:4, Informative)
:)
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No offense, but I'd trust Conrad Anker's judgment on this over yours...
I'm not sure exactly what you think they're doing so wrong, so maybe this is obvious to you but: "1,200m so far" is counting from Everest base camp, which is already at 5200 meters.
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Yeah, I'm looking forward to when someone posts live updates from the Death Valley to Mount Whitney ultramarathon, and you dopes complain that he used Front Page instead of vi.
It's pretty naive to think you've done anything at all if you've made it to a base camp of a climb where people are living in shelters or small villages.
Nobody is saying that going to base camp is a huge accomplishment
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Conrad Anker is one of the best mountaineers in the world. There's no chance he's ill-perpared for this trip. Of course, they _are_ doing this trip using only 1920s-style clothes and gear (their team is removing all the fixed ropes and ladders before they ascend). But, if anyone has the skills and experience to attempt this, it's Conrad. Leo Houlding, on the other hand, is an odd choice from an high-altitude experience perspective, but he's proven himself on a number of b
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I hope he isn't removing all of the fixed ropes and ladders from the North Route. Other climbers expect those to be there and they can be lifesavers.
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Yeah, I wondered about this, too. Their goal is to simulate the conditions faced by Mallory and Irvine as much as possible, so removing the fixed aid makes sense. I'm assuming (hoping) that their support team will remove them and then replace them once Conrad and Leo pass. It would be a little irresponsible to not replace them and risk the lives of other climbers.
-Chris
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They have a long way to go before they get to the top - from their route, it looks like they will be going through the Northeast ridge [wikipedia.org] route. This means that they have a long way before reaching the First, Second and Third Steps and finally, the summit.
And like someone else mentioned, Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air [amazon.com] is his book on Everest - he talks about Anatoli Boukreev (a Russian climber whom Jon criticizes) and he talks about Beck Weathers who was left for dead but despite being frostbitten,
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FYI - when one climbs Everest, you go up, you come down, you go up higher, you come back down, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. It's called "acclimitazation".
Stay warm! (Score:4, Interesting)
And depending on the make and model, the second failure mode, the batteries bursting into flames, will keep you warm on those chilly Everest nights.
It is safe to say that climbing Everest has no more significance now than parking your car. Every year, a cavalcade of people charge up the mountain, to the point there are actual people jams at the approach to the summit. Ho hum.
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Yeah, I agree. Every obese, untrained geek can do it. Ten times a day.
I mean, de you really mean it? Of course, a trained, highly experienced, thoroughly prepared team nowadays has a good chance of actually reaching the top and not dying on the way (though many do) but it is still very far from being trivial.
The sexual equivalent... (Score:1, Offtopic)
I'm not saying everyone on the planet could pull it off (perhaps only a handful of Slashdot readers), but when it happens it's not exactly big news, is it????
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He should have sprung for one of the new flash memory drives. What's a couple hundred bucks when you're on top of the world?
Great, and I'd like to hear more... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Temperature vs. pressure (Score:2)
A hilltop like that will both be cold and have thin air, but there's a difference between the two.
When laptops were fairly new (early 90's), Toshiba made some headlines by having a laptop used by an arctic team. Low temperatures on an arctic scale do strange things to components (besides mild natural overclocking?), and keeping the LCD liquid was by itself a feat.
However, as stated by others, temperatures are not the only, or greatest, problem. Low pr
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A Geek on Everquest? (Score:3, Funny)
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Blown Hard Drives? (Score:1, Redundant)
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Why not save all the money from the several thumb drives and the 3 laptops and buy one nice big SSD. They might not be very commonplace but hey, neither is climbing everest!! Sure they're expensive but I bet they're cheaper than all the other hardware they bought "for redundancy".
Unbefreakinglievable (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, a bunch of IT dorks who a) have a 70% chance of developing a basic LAMP site correctly at sea level and b) a 15% chance of walking around the block without stopping for breath are sneering at him for -- using Flash.
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Admittedly, it's impressive, but then again climbing Everest is no longer a glamour thing. It's become pedestrian, with basically climbing "tourists" being led up the mountain by guides making big bucks while the Sherpas do most of the hard work of actually summiting. And there are plenty of people going up that mountain who have no business being up there. And every year people die because of stupidity, in a place which is unforgiving of mistakes [amazon.com].
I admire the guy for doing it. God knows, my wife would li
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Let me know when they set up a network on top of K2 or Gasherbrum IV.
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K2 or the Gasherbrums are hard because they are technical. But just because Everest is not very technical does not make it easy.
At high altitudes, it is not just how hard it is technically, you have a million other facto
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> Simply being the highest though doesn't make it the most interesting.
I agree, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy, either. I mea
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This is a popular meme, but it simply is not true. Everest is called a "walk-up" in the sense that it is not technically challenging, so you don't have to be a world-class CLIMBER to get to the summit, but to suggest that makes it either easy or safe is just wrong. It has a ridiculously high death rate, and most of the prime physic
This is Slashdot (Score:2)
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To all those criticizing, please try coding after keeping your hands in ice for fifteen minutes, and with a bag over your head to simulate oxygen deprivation (You are allowed a small hole). My uncle has be
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There is no ambiguity about climbing a mountain. He's doing it.
Bollocks to that. (Score:2)
Climbing mount Everest is not what it used to be.
It is becoming a high risk holiday, perhaps similar to swimming with sharks or bungee jumping, or perhaps more dangerous than that, but the point is that we are not talking Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary here anymore, it gets so crowded up there that rubbish is becoming a real issue now.
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If there is a lot of your body to cover, the amount of blood going to your brain is going to be limited. Have a good workout and see how much better you can think.
Really? Climbed it before and after, have we?
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http://www.pikespeakcolorado.com/ [pikespeakcolorado.com] - 14,110 in the comfort of your car.
I don't care (Score:2)
If you use Flash for your website, you lose your geek credentials. You aren't a geek-- you're a graphic artist who knows enough about computers to be dangerous.
End of fucking story.
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Well, I'd like to see his site but I'm running Linux on x86_64, so I'm SOL.
Maybe if he (they?) had had the foresight to just stick up a bunch of text files and pictures as well as the Flash monstrocity I'd be able to take a look, but as it is, hey, nothing to see here, move along.
Flash is great for your 3D panoramic views, embedded movie players, games and all, but using it for the *whole* of your site is a case of "I've got a hammer so everything is a nail".
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Arm-chair mountaineering, anyone?
hey (Score:1, Redundant)
Whoa, holy crap! (Score:5, Funny)
wiki mofo (Score:2)
2000 climbers in 2007; about 600 summits so far (Score:5, Interesting)
The factor that greater increased climbers was the entry of cut-rate Chinese climbing companies from the north. Nepal permits cost about $10K per climber, total expedition is $20K - $60K. China cost be below $10K, thus attracting hordes. 2006 had the second highest death total (8), mostly blamed on the shortcuts and inexperience of Chinese companies. I saw (6) so far in 2007.
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Solid state hard drives? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Some people from Digg snuck through (Score:4, Insightful)
Non-Flamebait: A lot of interesting information in the website, and the photographs are excellent, good luck with the expedition!
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Alas, while lost in the desert, the chosen worshiped golden idols, and all things shiny, and did hold presentation more dear than God or standards or content. And so the internet did become a desert also, bereft of intelligence and littered with the bones of broken websites and pages inaccessible to those not of the tribes of Adobe.
In his wrath, God sent down a plague of
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I was shocked myself that flash was used for something actually useful.
Here is a really interesting presentation using it, too: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4237353244 338529080 [google.com]
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Well, I simply can't view flash on 64bit Linux and I really cannot be arsed going to the bother of installing a separate 32bit browser just to view what mostly amounts to annoying epilepsy-inducing adverts and assholes singing along to a song that some other asshole sang along to.
I'll file it for later when Adobe get their fingers out and release a 64 bit plugin, or gnash gets halfway usable. Filed in
*Yawn* (Score:1, Insightful)
If he wants to be impressive and tell a story about something that people haven't heard before, he should try to climb the East face of K2, THEN get back to us.
Newsflash! (Score:2)
What cheat codes will he use? (Score:1)
Spawning at the top could lead to all sorts of clipping problems if he gets the coords wrong...
Check your spelling! (Score:1, Funny)
Everyone is going up Everest (Score:2)
I thought this article was about software (Score:1)
new errors (Score:1)
High-tech protest in Chinese-occupied Base Camp (Score:3, Informative)
Using inexpensive off-the-shelf gear they managed to broadcast a live video of the protest before the Chinese "People's Armed Police" caught wind of the "evil Freedom banner" they were holding and quickly grabbed them into custody. But the video had already been streamed into safety and in near real-time uploaded to various video-streaming sites.
Being protected by foreign passports the protesters had to only endure verbal threats, separation from fellow protesters, sleep depravation etc. for less then three days before being deported from the Chinese-occupied Tibet. However for the exiled Tibetan member of the crew the price of taking part in the protest was far heavier since he would now be banned from returning to his homeland... until Tibet regains it freedom, or at least until the Chinese people change their criminal and expansionist CCP regime to one which doesn't commit systematic genocide against China's historical neighbours.
For indigenous Tibetans living under Chinese oppression any action calling for freedom in Tibet will without exception result in far more horrifying treatment involving unimaginable forms of torture and years, even decades of imprisonment in one of the many Chinese concentration camps like Drapchi outside Lhasa. More than a few Tibetans - often young buddhist nuns or monks - have died in the Chinese gulags and this horror show has continued for several decades. Even people like the visiting EU Commissioner for Human Rights is denied access to these Tibetan prisoners of conscience.
More information about this Base Camp protest and the Tibetan struggle in general can be found from the Students For A Free Tibet [studentsfo...etibet.org] and Phayul [phayul.com] websites.
cool but (Score:1)
Blown hard drives and frozen fingers... (Score:2)
iPods at altitude (Score:1, Interesting)
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Pronunciation: 'mas-t&r-b&-"tor-E
Function: adjective
2 : excessively self-absorbed or self-indulgent (write tedious, masturbatory books...about themselves for people to read...with envy -- D. R. Katz)
Main Entry: self masturbatory
Pronunciation: 'self 'mas-t&r-b&-"tor-E
Function: redundant adjective
1 : a redundant form of the word masturbatory
see also: self autonomy, self narcissism
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There may be better ways of doing it, and I'm not sure why the whole site has to be Flash, but the decision wasn't completely arbitrary.
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Re:flash? (Score:4, Insightful)
Skip to the route map to get an idea of the effort they put into the site (http://www.ueverest.com/route_map.html). It's Java, not Flash (which also suggests the designers understand how to choose the right technology for the job).
Anyway, as someone who tends to have the anti-Flash bias, I was surpised by this site. Even if you're not into mountaineering, it's worth looking at to see the potential of interactive Web applications.
-Chris
(And what's up with moderators moding the anti-Flash parent as 'Insightful'?)
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(And what's up with moderators moding the anti-Flash parent as 'Insightful'?)
Well, as somebody who has an anti-flash bias, why are you bothered? "Insightful" is often used as a generic "I agree" in Slashdot terms. There's absolutely no reason for the whole of this guy's site to be in Flash without any alternative. Flash is proprietary (you're not even allowed to read the spec to make an alternative player), there are lots of platforms it doesn't run on, and it is absolute overkill when text, hyperlinks, and images would do. I could understand having certain interactive pieces
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Yeah. What's with that?
I mean I don't see how it is even possible that it is insightful. It's just notice of heeding a warning.
At least 'troll' makes some sort of sense, not that I agree with it.
That explains it. (Score:3, Funny)
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I wonder how I still get '0 - Troll' from this :
Starting Score: 1 point
Moderation -1
40% Troll
40% Insightful
20% Overrated
Extra 'Troll' Modifier 0
Total Score: 0